A Ride To Remember
by cachexica
Summary: A cycle ride that changed their lives. [DM/HG; Setting: 5th Year ONESHOT]


**A/N– A pseudo-fluffy oneshot. Something different from my usual angst. Yay!**

**Also I type from a small five inch screen without MS word, so some mistakes may have crept in. Sorry about that. You are very much welcome to (politely) point them out. Please review. :D**

**I hope you enjoy it!**

**A RIDE TO REMEMBER**

**By grey chemistry**

"Oh no, it's surely isn't him...", she murmured.

She hadn't expected to see him there. Not in her favourite café. Or anywhere in a muggle locality for that matter. But there he was, in all his pompous glory.

She had noticed him first but then had looked away, not in the slightest mood to ruin her vacations with a bad memory, courtesy of one Draco Malfoy. Sipping her glass of cold coffee, she quickly picked up the vacant, unused Times lying on her table and began pretending to read it. Her eyes frequently jumped past the confines of the pages to see where he had taken his seat and which direction he was facing. He was alone.

Fate surely had a fallout with her that day because he was facing her, or rather her curtain of a newspaper. She groaned quietly in distress. A passing waitress gave her strange looks. Why, _why_, he had to come here? Wasn't she supposed to enjoy her summer? _Without _the likes of him?, she thought, exasperated.

It had been a fortnight since her parents and her had been staying in their cosy summer house in Bovey Tracey. Just yesterday only she had received Ron's letter informing her that they wouldn't be spending the rest of their vacations at the Burrow but somewhere new. She had been excited at the prospect. But now sitting in this small and quaint café with Draco Malfoy directly in her line of vision, she couldn't help but feel a little bitter.

Right now as she sat hiding from Malfoy, her parents were wandering in the local market, each step leading them away from her dilemma, that is her dilemma of whether she should get up confidently, pay her bill without a twitch and leave or whether she should stay hiding and wait for him to leave.

Who knew she was so afraid of stumbling across him outside the boundaries of Hogwarts?

She sat there brooding for quite some time, miraculously hoping that he would be the first to leave. But nope. That git was sitting there, just sipping on his tea. Who drinks hot tea on such a sweltering evening?, she thought. Apparently Malfoy does, she concluded. Deciding that she had enough of this unwanted nonsense ('He's just a twitchy little ferret after all!'), she folded the newspaper purposefully, put it back in its place and stood up gracefully.

He saw her in an instant and a flash of realisation stuck his face. Regaining fast from his bout of surprise, a smirk quickly found its way on his face. She smirked in response, not afraid. He was surprised again.

She made her way to the counter, paid her bill and was just outside the glass doors, thinking her troubles were over when a callused hand caught her right arm just a little over the elbow. _Uh-oh, s_he sighed inwardly. He was strangely quiet. "I thought you were afraid of Mudblood germs.", she began, quite quietly. Luckily no one was around to listen. He quickly withdrew his hand. "What are you doing here Granger?", he asked as if he hadn't just be clutching her arm.

"I happen to have a home here Malfoy. Aside from that, the question at the moment is, what are _you _doing here?" She sneered.

He was taken aback for a minute second, not being used to her smirking and sneering. "Me? I was just roaming around.", he said at last.

She knew he was lying and looked at him oddly. "The Malfoy I know doesn't roam around with Muggles."

"Then you don't know him."

She rolled her eyes thoroughly at that, turned away from him and made her way towards the bicycle stand, which happened to be just outside the café. Carefully making her way through the mass of cycles, she caught her black-framed cycle and pulled it out.

"You're riding _that_?"

"Yes.", she remarked, stating the obvious. She caught his nervous stare. "Is the great muggle-hating Malfoy afraid of this muggle contraption?", she added.

"No..." His voice had an odd wavering quality to it. "It's just that I need your help."

"My help? And why shall _I_ , help _you_?"

"_Please_ Granger. I need a ride.", he replied very quietly.

"You need a what?", she asked incredulously.

"Don't make me repeat it. I know you heard me perfectly fine."

"But why do you need it in the first place itself?"

He lowered his voice even more, afraid that passing people would overhear their conversation. "I walked a long distance forgetting that I don't have my broom with me. Now it's getting dark. I know I shouldn't have been so careless but now what's done can't be undone. It's—", he took out his pocket watch from his trouser pocket and glanced at it, "— almost six-thirty now. If I don't get home by seven-thirty , father would skin me alive. So, please."

She saw a desperate glint in his grey eyes. "But wouldn't you rather take the bus? It is much quicker than my cycle.", she asked as stood lazily against the handlebars.

"The bus doesn't go where I am going. So no. And I would very much prefer you."

If someone would have heard that last sentence, they would have thought that the platinum-blond haired boy was coming out of his denial regarding the brown haired girl. But that was far, very far from the case here.

"Okay...", she trailed off uncertainly as she pulled her cycle onto the road and put her left foot on the pedal, ready to speed away. He stood rooted on his spot, wondering how he had got stuck in this awkward position at all.

"Aren't you coming Malfoy?"

He didn't say anything as he made his way towards her and the cycle and looked at them quizzically. "Oh Merlin! You don't know what to do, do you?"

"Does it look like to you?", he replied gruffly.

"No, surely not...", she murmured contemptuously to to herself as she removed her foot from the pedal and held the cycle by its saddle and its bars to keep it steady. "You have to sit here.", she indicated to the carrier behind the saddle. "I won't sit there! It will prick.", he stated in a matter-of-fact tone. "Take your pick Malfoy— be pricked or be skinned.", she said nastily.

"Be pricked for sure.", he muttered quietly as he put his right leg on the other side of the frame and sat carefully. "What was that?", she asked as she smirked.

"Nothing."

She took her place at the front again and sat down, one foot at the pedal. "Catch hold of my waist Malfoy. You don't want to fall, do you?", she said firmly, not believing that she had just asked her oppressor of years to hold her waist. Fate was a strange thing, she concluded.

"Oh...oh, yes", he said uncertainly as he put his hands around her petite waist and clasped it gently, his warm calloused hands flat against the thin cotton covering her stomach. She gasped inwardly at the sensation.

Slowly and steadily she began peddling. "You never asked where I have to go.", he said softly near her ear. It sent shivers down her spine. She stayed quiet and controlled her erratic breathing. Malfoy was one opportunistic prat, she thought. Always thinking of making her uncomfortable. Meanwhile, he didn't even have a clue as to what he had done to her as he looked around. "Granger we have to go there.", he remarked at last as he pointed towards the opposite direction.

She nodded unnoticeably and turned a full circle. However the opposite direction wasn't unnoticeably slopy. In fact it was very much a slippery slope and as soon as she had turned, the sudden incline had given an unprecedented acceleration to their speed and they hurtled down wildly. His extra weight was making it even more difficult to balance the cycle. His grip on her tightened. "You will get us killed!"

"No I will not.", she replied deftly over the sound of the rushing wind.

Her modest brown frock whipped around. Luckily it didn't rise all the way up and for that, she thanked all the gods she knew. His dark grey trousers and white shirt clung to him as they rushed down the slippery slope. Her curls flew helter skelter and found their home in his face. "Oh for Merlin's sake Granger, keep your bush away from my face."

"If somebody has noticed, I am trying to steady us. So shut up your mouth and bear with me!", she snapped.

He shut up like an henpecked husband.

Her 'bush', he discovered wasn't as bad as he had thought. It was surprisingly soft and smelt of sandalwood. It was not at all bad. In fact, it was good. He made a mental note that he was never to tease Granger about her hair again. As he was lost in her hair, both figuratively and literally, she applied brakes and a very harsh, screeching sound was produced and they slowed down considerably.

"I'll live.", he murmured.

"Yep, you sure will.", she sighed as they once again reached flat ground. Perhaps she had forgotten that the boy sitting behind her was Draco Malfoy, her archenemy because she leaned against him with relief as she peddled slowly, relaxed. "Uhh Granger?"

She came to her senses and her back became straight as a pole once again. He didn't say anything. They continued their silent journey, he watching the melancholic moors around as well as smelling her hair and she trying to concentrate on the road ahead, not on the feeling of his strong hands on her waist.

To any bystanders, they were the perfect picture of young love. Many had even thought that the boy on carrier was teaching his girl to ride. That was so not here.

Only when they did reach a forked division, did she stop. "Where off to now?", she asked, breath slightly panting as they stopped at the meeting point of the three paths.

"The leftmost one."

"Okay." And they rode into the darkening dusk.

This road went off into a lively woodland. Millions of roosting birds were chirping noisily in the high branches of the trees. He was leaning forward, trying to watch the path ahead and those birds were a welcome distraction from his warm breath on her neck. "What time is it?", she asked.

"Its nearly seven now.", he said as he looked up from his watch.

"How far are we?"

"Nearly a mile."

"A mile? A mile! That's too much!"

"And I sure you would be able to do it Granger, the hardworking beaver you are."

"I didn't come out here to be insulted. Thank you very much.", she yelled and turned to face him.

"Watch out!"

She quickly whipped around her head to momentarily register the fact that they were heading straight into the hard trunk of a tree. She didn't even have a second to change their course. As the cycle collided, she too fell and since he had caught hold of her the entire time, he too fell with her.

She didn't know how her head survived the terrible fall but then she discovered that Malfoy's hand had cupped it at the last moment. Perhaps it had been instinct or perhaps purpose. Whatever it had been, it told her that the boy who lay silently on top of her was human after all. Their noses touched and slowly their eyes opened.

Uncertain brown said hello to uncertain grey.

"Are you hurt?", she asked tentatively,

"Does it look like I am not hurt?"

"Obviously not.", she said sarcastically under her breath.

Using the tree trunk as a support, he tried to get up. However, his hand somehow slipped and he came tumbling forward, his lips landing squarely on hers. Their eyes widened at the unintended contact. Somewhere a skylark broke into a song for its mate.

They did the complete opposite of what a girl and a boy who were caught in a situation like theirs were supposed to do.

They pushed each other away, simultaneously. Disbelief was spread upon their faces.

No one spoke of the little incident under the tree as they resumed their travels. The rest of the journey was very quiet. No downward slope, no wayward tree. Nothing. Nothing except the orange glow of the sweltering evening, her constant panting and his strong hold on her waist.

It was exactly seven twenty one as he told her to stop. Apparently they were near his home. "I thought you lived in Wiltshire.", she said a little awkwardly, still affected by the almost kiss. The key word there being 'almost'. "This is just a small estate, hidden away from Muggles.", he said calmly.

Her lips formed an O as she understood. She quickly straightened them as she caught him eying them.

She waved a goodbye and turned around her cycle. She had just sat down when she felt an arm around her waist and was yanked back. The cycle clattered to the ground as she fell on top of him. "What are you doing Malfoy!", she hissed.

"Just finishing unfinished business Granger.", he whispered against her lips as his fingers grazed her stomach. She whimpered a little at that touch, _that magical touch. _And suddenly he was kissing her, his slick tongue trying to pry open the velvety pocket of her lips.

So she did what was right.

She kissed him back.

* * *

Years later, when their children were cycling one sweltering evening, he asked her–

"Will you give me a ride Granger?"

This time she didn't ask the whys or the hows. Instead she nodded contently.

"Of course."

They smiled.

DAS ENDE


End file.
